


Slipping into the Gray

by Despina



Category: Saiyuki
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-25
Updated: 2014-04-25
Packaged: 2018-01-20 17:49:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,554
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1519736
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Despina/pseuds/Despina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gojyo and Sanzo are bored.  So, so bored.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Slipping into the Gray

**Author's Note:**

> I owe so much to my betas (Whymzy and Jedi), but I was the last to have my grubby fingers on it.

Slipping into the Gray

 

Huifen sighed heavily as she closed the door to the strangers' room. She leaned against the wall looking frazzled.

"Are they at it again?" Jiaying asked. Like her younger sister, she carried a tray, but hers was loaded down with bowls of broth and some ice for the two sick men.

"Yes," Huifen muttered. "I can't believe the four of them have come so far and not killed each other."

Jiaying smiled. "They are a handful. But the dark-haired one is very polite."

"You mean Hakkai?"

"Yes, Hakkai." Jiaying liked saying the name.

"Well, I wouldn't get attached, sister. They'll be gone soon enough."

From the other side of the door, they heard a voice shout, "Not this time, you cheatin' monk!"

The other voice was low and soft, but somehow it traveled just as well as the one shouting. "Shut up or I'll shoot you."

"They never stop!" Huifen looked at the ceiling and shook her head before retreating to the kitchen.

Jiaying exhaled and opened the door. Cigarette smoke rolled out of the room in a cloud. Really—they were two of the most self-centered people she'd ever met. She set down the tray and opened a window to air out the room. At least it was warm outside.

"I saw you switch out one of the cards, cheater!" the one called Gojyo said.

The sanzo priest didn't answer but kicked Gojyo's shin.

"Ow! You bastard!" Gojyo jumped up, grabbed Sanzo's black tunic at the neck, and pulled him so they were face to face. "I ought to—"

"Gentlemen, please!" Jiaying said, her patience snapping. "Can you please keep the noise level down for your sick companions?"

The little dragon cooed angrily at the pair. 

"I agree, Hakuryuu," Hakkai said as he struggled to sit up. He wrinkled his nose and waved at the smoke. "Can't you two go elsewhere?"

"The inn's full," Gojyo said, flopping into his chair again. "The town's small and I didn't see anything else. Where could we go?"

"There's The Lotus," Jiaying said as she arranged pillows around Hakkai, trying to make him comfortable. "It's not too far, maybe half a mile."

"What's that?" Gojyo asked.

"It's a bar."

Sanzo paused. 

Gojyo looked at her hopefully. "With alcohol?"

"Yes," Jiaying said. "And there are card games and pool tables. Although, to be honest, it's a rather rough place."

Gojyo was on his feet and he grinned at her. "Oh, pretty Jiaying, I'd like to kiss you!"

Jiaying felt her heartbeat increase. Gojyo's smile was, well, charming.

"Come on, monk, let's go get hammered—and maybe I can get lucky."

Sanzo made a noise of discontent.

"I didn't mean with you," Gojyo said as he leaned in close to Sanzo. "Unless you really wanted to. Then, you know, I'd give—"

Sanzo kicked Gojyo again and then calmly gathered up his cigarettes.

"Hey," Gojyo said, hopping toward the exit on one foot and rubbing the other. "I'm just saying, if you got laid, you'd be less pissy. I'm pretty sure I could help you—"

"Out, please," Hakkai said with a more insistent tone and despite the hoarseness of his voice.

The door closed and Jiaying breathed a sigh of relief. "Well, you certainly know how to work with them."

Hakkai looked pale, but he reached for the broth all the same. "Years of practice, I'm sad to say."

"Was Gojyo kidding? I mean, about the two of them?" She didn't think that likely. They barely managed to stay in the same room without arguing, so how could they be more to one another? But then again, that seemed to work for her mother and father. 

Hakkai gave her a vacant but pleasant smile. He didn't say anything.

"Never mind," Jiaying said, feeling her face heat. "That was rude of me to ask."

Goku sat up in the other bed. He had more of a green tint to his skin. "Do I smell food?"

Jiaying laughed and helped with Goku's pillows. "You both look much better today."

"I'm starting to feel a little better," Hakkai said with a bit of a cough. "We're so sorry to inconvenience you like this."

"Not at all," she said. "You've both been such good patients. But your friends are another story." She glanced at the door.

Goku's voice cracked as he said, "Did the cockroach grab ya or somethin'?" 

"Oh, no, nothing like that." She handed a bowl to Goku. "It's just that they're here being so loud, arguing pointlessly and smoking like chimneys with the two of you so ill. They just seem rather … heartless."

"Ah ha ha," Hakkai laughed politely and then coughed. 

Slurping at his soup Goku said, "Yeah, I guess it could kinda look that way, but words like that can get gray real fast, ya know what I mean?"

She shook her head.

Goku held out his bowl. "The soup's good. Could I have some more?"

 

"Gray, huh?" Huifen asked. "What a strange thing to say."

"I think I understand it, but still, I think they're heartless. Even if the other two sure don't feel that way," Jiaying said.

"They wouldn't," their father said. He was preparing the meals for the next day, stirring up a new pot of broth. "They're fighting a war."

Jiaying frowned and said, "What?"

"They're the Sanzo Ikkoku, child," he said softly. "They've been fighting youkai all the way across China. I'm sure they've seen more than their share of misery."

Jaiying wondered if Hakkai and Goku being youkai was why the other two had stayed. To keep watch over their companions. Could that be?

"No, they're senseless killers," her brother Fuhua said. "I've read about them, too, Father and Jiaying's right. They're heartless."

Their father stopped stirring and turned. "Tell that to the humans they've saved along the way."

"I don't think they're human," Huifen said. "At least not the two upstairs—they both have limiters."

"Youkai in the inn?" their mother gasped out and then shivered.

"Somehow, that makes me feel worse about them," Fuhua said as he crossed his arms. "They've been killing their own."

Their father raised the ladle he held. "I wouldn't judge too harshly. I've seen what the crazed youkai can do. They lose their senses and sometimes they even eat people."

"Excuse me," Hakkai said from the doorway. He was still so pale. 

Jiaying glanced around the room and say her mother's stony stare and her brother's disapproving scowl. She wondered if Hakkai had heard their conversation. She was embarrassed for her family. "Oh, Hakkai, you really shouldn't be up."

The village's klaxon bell began to ring, signaling a warning. There was a fire or worse.

Hakkai coughed. "I think perhaps you might—"

Outside, gunshots fired and a clanging of metal on metal. There was a growing din of growling and screaming and some swearing. The combined noise was so loud, Huifen covered her ears.

"—want to take cover," Hakkai finished with a shout.

Goku appeared behind Hakkai. "Sanzo and Gojyo, are outside. Looks like they can handle it."

"That's good, because I'm not sure how much help I can be today."

"Yeah." Goku nodded and leaned on a red staff Jiaying hadn’t seen before.

There were more shots and more metal clanging, and at Hakkai's urging, the family hunkered down under a table. The noise seemed to go on for hours, but in actuality, the entire battle was over in about twenty minutes. Goku and Hakkai hadn't even left the kitchen.

When Jiaying finally found the courage to look out a window, she saw Gojyo and Sanzo outside. They were bloody and bruised, and Gojyo limped as he reached for Sanzo's lighter. Then they stood quietly side by side and smoked, looking for any remaining threats. All around them lay bodies.

And the next morning, when Jiaying awoke, she found her family and various guests in the dining room, but not Gojyo or Sanzo. She ran to their room, only to find it empty, tidy and straightened up, with a vase filled with flowers on the table.

"Where are they?" she asked her mother and father as she sat down to eat.

"Gone," her father said. "The war continues, you know. I heard tales from a dozen of our neighbors, all saying that without the sanzo priest and his companion, we would've been overrun." 

"And they also said the two of them argued with one another through the entire fight!" Huifen said with a grin.

"The two of them saved the whole village?" Jiaying asked. "But there were so many …"

"I heard over a hundred," Huifen said, a little breathlessly. "A hundred while they were calling each other names, can you believe it?"

Fuhua snorted. "Likely the youkai wouldn't have come if Sanzo and his party hadn't."

"Perhaps," their father said. 

"Well," their mother said as she furrowed her brow. "I, for one, am glad they're gone. Filthy youkai, even if they were with a sanzo priest!"

Jiaying remembered her words to Hakkai about Sanzo and Gojyo. And now, after risking their lives to save their companions and her village, she heard her mother's terrible words and her brother's obvious disdain.

Until that moment, she'd been sure she knew what "heartless" meant, but now its clear meaning slipped away into the gray.


End file.
